News Brief

October 13, 2008

A lawsuit against the author of a fabricated Holocaust memoir was dismissed by a Massachusetts judge. Publisher Jane Daniel had sued Misha Defonseca, the author of the 1997 book “Misha: A Memoire of the Holocaust Years,” and her ghostwriter Vera Lee to overturn a $32.4 million court judgment the writers had won against Daniel in a prior dispute over profits.

The story about surviving the Holocaust by living with wolves was false, so Daniel argued that Defonseca had “perpetrated a hoax” on the trial judge and jury. But Middlesex Superior Court Judge Timothy Feeley threw out the lawsuit Oct. 7 because it had been filed after the one-year statute of limitations, The Associated Press reported. Feeley said the memoir’s lack of truthfulness “did not go to the heart of the case.” Daniel’s lawyer said he plans to appeal.

The book was translated into 18 languages and made into a feature film in France before Defonseca admitted in February that she had made up the stories in the book and was not even Jewish.